Get the best price for Books

1. Get the ISBN number (The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a unique numeric commercial book identifier) of the book from any of the online book stores or through a search on google.

2. Type isbn.net.in/"the isbn number"

3. This would automatically search from 15 online sites and give you the price at each site for the same book.

4. Buy from the site giving you the least price.

Warning: But, it doesn't seem to be working for all the books. Anyway, a one min work can save you a hundred or so.

Most difficult proof reading

What is the one book almost everyone goes through in their lifetime but is the hardest to proof read?

The Dictionary!

Unlike technical books, where even a small group of experts can have an authority on the matter, the dictionary contains thousands of areas of words and no small group of experts can proof read and verify what is written.

I wonder how the dictionary companies like Oxford dictionary, Webster's disctionary, etc actually proof read them. Moreover, in today's internet world, do they just see the new words used in Google/Yahoo and add them to the next edition? How do they find new words that are being used? Do they even rely on unconfirmed research from unreliable sources to and add the new words based on these researches?

I have my questions and reservations. Further, I wonder what will the daily work of a person working in these dictionary companies. What kind of resources do they have at their disposal? Do they have huge libraries & online databases? Do they go to different countries to see the frequency of usage of certain words? What will one have to do/be to get into these companies to work on the core of their work? I wonder...

Best enterpreneural books

http://www.businessinsider.com/required-reading-for-entrepreneurs-2010-1#the-fountainhead-by-ayn-rand-1

Notes to myself - Part 1

Excerpts from a book called "Notes to myself" by 'Hugh Prather':

"There is a part of me that wants to write, a part that wants to theorize, a part that wants to sculpt, a part that wants to teach... To force myself into a single role, to decide to be just one thing in life would kill off large parts of me."

"If I work toward an end, meantime I am confined to a process."

"Because the results are unpredictable, no effort of mine is doomed to failure. And even a failure will not take the form I imagine. 'It will be interesting to see what happens' is a more reaslistic attitude toward future consequences than worry."

"I am convinced that this anxiety running through my life is the tension between what I 'should be' and what I am. My anxiety does not come from thinking about the future but wanting to control it."

"Meaning changes with the context. My meaningfulness is here. Its enough that I am of comfort to someone today. Its enough that I make a difference now."

"Boredom or discontent is useful to me when I acknowledge it and see clearly my assumption that there's something else I would rather be doing. In this way boredom can act as an invitation to freedom by opening me to new options and thoughts."

A small world of finance

The more I observe, the smaller the world of finance seems to be. This week I have seen 2 new books - "My life as a Quant" by Emanuel Derman, "The black swan" by Taleb. The review of both the books has the author of the other book praise each other. The book "Traders, guns and money" (My all time favourite book) by Satyajit Das talks about both these books in it. Now, a blog I regularly read "www.financialrounds.blogspot.com" talked about an article written by Joe Necera about Risk mismanagement. The article starts by quoting made by Peter Bernstein, an famous financial commentator, on the book "The black swan". Also, "Traders, guns and money" has a mention about Peter Bernstein in its book. Now this takes the cake. I just found out an hour ago that my finance prof. has read all the 3 books "Traders, guns and money", "My life as a quant" and "The black swan". And last week he had given the whole class to read an article called Risk mismanagement(by Joe Necera). The world of finance is too intertwined and everyone seems to be refering to each other.

One more step ahead

I recommend all emotionally stable adults to read the book "God's Debris" by Scott Adams. The reason I say adults and emotionally stable is because it dwells into thoughts that are very scary and the thoughts can play with your head. It can make you feel like a nobody in this world. What the book proposes is very extra-ordinary and tries to predict the future, but not the usual kind of future, but the future of mankind and what is our significance in all of universe. One of the propositions of this book is that each of us are like individual cells in a body who just does its functions without even knowing the existence of many other cells, and the human as such. Similarly, we all have a role to play in this universe as it evolves. Also, all the people in this world will connect to each other and help evolve earth which is itself a living particle of this universe. This connection I can see in the form of the internet spreading like wild fire, making people's lives even more transparent to the world. Now, people not only put up their photos on the web, but also their record their whole day's activities and put it on the web. Also, special web services, take photos of a typical person every 3 minutes and these get uploaded to the net automatically. Basically, our whole mankind's lives are being put on a framework from where humans are going to use it for further analysis to do something of a higher significance. Maybe to help test a human robot. The below link just made me think of God's debris and the future. http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/oct2008/gb20081027_886542.htm I am not very sure if the distant future is bright... I am not even sure if the near future is bright... I am not even sure if we had to have something known as conciousness to do whatever we are supposed to be doing to help evolve the universe...